Control devices such as thermostats and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (“HVAC”) controllers require configuration before operating in a particular application. This configuring is typically accomplished at 1) the factory, 2) the user's office, 3) at the job site, or 4) a combination of the above. U.S. Pat. No. 7,987,247, entitled BACnet Protocol MS/TP Automatic MAC Addressing, is incorporated by reference as disclosing one part of configuring.
In any case, a physical communications connection is usually required and power is applied to the device being configured. This means that the control device must be physically removed from the shipping box, wired to power and hooked up to a communications cable. In some cases, such as a thermostat or wallstat with display and keypad, the user would configure the unit by navigating through a series of screens and manually selecting configuration settings on the device. In the case of a device without a display and keypad, the user would enter configure the device with a separate computing device via a communications connection.
Near Field Communications (“NFC”) is a technology used to communicate with devices in a short range scenario. Current commercial uses are most typically Point Of Sale (POS) to exchange user credit information with retail outlets to complete a sales transaction. NFC uses the 13.56 MHZ frequency spectrum and is defined primarily, though perhaps not exclusively, by ISO 18000-3 and ISO 13157 and ISO 15693. NFC chips, antennas and readers are commercially offered by companies such as ST Microelectronics.